Literally millions of tons of machine tool chips and similar scrappage is generated each year in industrial machining operations including, primarily, machine shops. A machine tool chip is an irregularly shaped product in the sense that, though it may be a uniform few thousandths of an inch thick and wide, it may be anywhere from a fraction of an inch up to several inches in length, and the contour may be anywhere from straight (in an axial sense) to any twisted shape. Such chips must be rapidly removed from the immediate vicinity of their generation point, such as a lathe or a milling machine in a stand-alone or adjunct machine shop operation, and then conveyed to a collection point at which they may be further processed as by (1) dumping, (2) compacting and then dumping at a disposal site, or (3) assembled, with or without compacting or bundling, for recycling in a downstream industrial process, such as being remelted in a steel mill after leaving the steel mill's machine shop. The variations are nearly endless but common to all installations is the problem of ensuring that the volume of chips is maintained in a flowable condition at all times so that bunching or "hanging up" does not occur. When hanging up does occur the quantity of material moving per unit of time in the takeaway system is reduced or terminated and, worse yet, jamming of the system near the generation locations may force the generation locations, such as a machine tool, to shut down due to an inability to remove the chips. The problem of jamming or hanging up in hoppers which are downstream from the generation location, such as a lathe, is particularly troublesome in connection with machine tool chips since, no matter how regularly formed the chips may be, their sharp edges, projections and recesses inevitably cause them to interlock and agglomerate whenever two chips make contact with one another. The more hoppers in a chip takeaway system, the greater the problem.